


Ruins

by stringingwords



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clexa, Clexa Halloween Week, F/F, Halloween, One-Shot, Too tired for tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 18:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12563060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stringingwords/pseuds/stringingwords
Summary: The delinquents stumble onto more than they bargained for during one of Ravens experiments.





	Ruins

**Author's Note:**

> Banged this out in a laundromat one stressful day. Not quite sure what it is, but isn't that the beauty of Halloween .

‘Almost done, just gotta set the timer.’

The group watches lazily as Raven twists and tapes wires together, knowing from experience that offering to help is more trouble than it’s worth.

‘Right, that should do it.’

Clarke catches Octavia’s eye conspiratorially, both silently agreeing not to tell her about the extra piece of electric tape still stuck to her chin. 

‘How far of a radius do we need?’ 

’Six, seven meters should do it.’

‘It’s what you said last time and we could barely see anything.’

‘Yes, but this time,’ Raven replies, shoving the groaning Murphy back through the trees, ‘I’m testing a stronger explosive and don’t wanna pay your medical bill if you lose a limb.’

‘On second thought,’ she continues impishly, ‘I’ve been meaning to test the new BMI software with a custom-made pros and you’d be an excellent subject.’

‘Don’t count on it,’ he scowls, trudging through the leaves to nab another beer from the cooler.

They squat behind a fallen log, which provides at least a semblance of protection from the blast.  
Everyone knows they’ll be sticking their heads out to watch anyway.

Clarke looks around as she waits, fingers itching to sketch the serene beauty of the forest. Mid-fall, when both the trees and ground are covered in a warm amalgam of colors, is her favorite time to be outside. It seems almost a shame that Raven’s explosive will be certain to disrupt the peace. 

Almost, that is, because Raven’s explosions are often unpredictable and always spectacular.  
This one was no exception. There was the expected boom, the rain of leaves and twigs stirred up by the blast. But something else thuds; heavier, deeper. Almost like…

‘Holy fuck, that sounded like concrete,’ Raven whoops, sprinting from behind the log to examine the damage. 

The others scurry after her to discover a giant, gaping crater about a meter wide, which seemed to drop down into a tunnel of sorts. 

‘Now that’s something worth seeing,’ Bellamy exclaims, testing the ground around it. 

‘That’s weird, there aren’t supposed to be any ruins here, I’d never have…’ Raven trails off, puzzling over her map.

‘Well then, props to us for the discovery. I say we check it out,’ Octavia says, squatting and looking into the tunnel. 

‘I dunno, could come caving in on us,’ Murphy points out, absently kicking a rock into the abyss.  
‘Yeah, it might have already been unstable, who knows what the blast did to it.’ Raven adds.

Both jump back as a body shoots past them, landing squarely on the tunnel floor. Clarke stands proudly, dusting off her shirt as she eyes her friends. 

‘I say whoever doesn’t jump is a chicken and can exchange their Halloween costume for body paint of my choosing.’

The group is silent a moment, until Murphy tumbles in next to her, barley landing on his feet. Octavia stands over him with a smirk.

‘What the hell was that for?’

‘Murph, I tolerate you well enough, but I simply do not possess the grace to be seen at the Halloween bash with your naked ass.’

And with that, she drops in next to him, followed by Bellamy who grabs a couple of new beers to see him through the trek. Raven disappears from view, to a chorus of jeers and taunts, only to slide down minutes later, on a rope she’s fastened to a nearby tree.

‘Not that your body paint wouldn’t look ridiculously good on me, Clarke, but someone with half a brain needs to make sure you idiots don’t kill yourselves, starting with a way back up.’

A couple of them switch on their phone lights and shoot the beams probingly around. There doesn’t seem to be much to the right, or if there was it’s now hidden behind a mountain of earth and rubble.  
They start off in the other direction. The tunnel widens as they move further; thick, musty air lightening to become somewhat bearable. It eventually opens into a room, with the ceiling about a meter above them. An uneven flight of steps leads down to the center with a couple more passages branching off from there.

‘What is this place?’

‘Could be smugglers tunnels, or an old army fortification,’ Bellamy says, shining his light on the walls to try and see what they’re made of.

‘Doubtful. This stone is old, cruder than you would expect from the post-colonial era,’ Raven muses, tracing some markings cut into the stone.

She begins following them, setting off down one of the passage ways. 

‘Hold up, shouldn’t we stay together?’

‘Need someone to hold your hand, Murphy?’ Bellamy taunts.

‘Let’s just meet back here,’ Clarke suggests. ‘We don’t have that long anyways, if we want to make it to the party before all the good booze is gone.’

With that they unspeakingly break up into ones and twos and set off down the halls. Clarke follows Raven, suspecting that a corridor lined with markings might just lead to the jackpot. She crashes headlong into a back when Raven stops abruptly at the end of the tunnel.

‘Damn, Griffin, watch the clothes.’

‘Sorry,’ Clarke replies, trying to make out if any of her zombie makeup rubbed off on Ravens clockwork orange costume.  
She loses interest, however, when she catches sight of what made Raven stop in her tracks. 

‘Sweet Hades,’ she murmurs, ‘that’s some Tomb Raider shit right there.’

The room is huge, a perfect hexagon with a high ceiling and pillars that cast ominous shadows in the dim light of their phones. 

‘We are so getting famous for finding this,’ Raven whispers, voice still echoing easily off the walls. 

They break away from the tunnel, each making their way down a separate wall to examine the stonework. Clarke marvels at the pillars imposing and expertly carved. She steps back to get a better look, only to realize that the bumps and crevices in the stone are actually folds and wrinkles of flowing garments. They’re statues! Fierce, beautifully ominous faces. No doubt the gods of some long-forgotten religion. Except…

‘Hey Rae, have you noticed. That statues are all female. Whoever these guys were they had it right. Sign me up for their religion.

‘Rae?

‘Raven Sofia Isabella Garcia Reyes! If this is your stupid idea of a Halloween prank cut it the fuck out. It’s creepy enough already here.’

No answer.

Clarke huffs, shining her weak beam around the cavernous room. No sign of anything other than moldy stone and the hostile gaze of the goddesses. She moves back, making her way to where Raven was when she last saw her. 

Then she hears it, a scuffing. Feet on stone, scrambling. She hurries around a giant slab that’s stained in a crisscross of darker strokes. Time for art appreciation later. Then she turns the corner and her stomach bottoms out.

She’s found Raven.

She’s tied, hand and foot in a spread-eagled position like some grotesque twist of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Well, manacled would be a better word; thick, iron chains that still look unbreakable despite centuries of accumulated rust. 

But it’s her face that chills the blood in Clarke’s veins; fear, agony, stretched in a silent scream that never leaves her lips. Despite the bulging vein in her neck and her jaw open at a dangerously wide angle. Contort and twist and strain at her larynx as she might, not a sound escapes.

Clarke yells her name, surging forward, ready to tear the chains from her with her bare hands if she has to. Only to find she can’t. Reach her, that is. As soon as she gets two meters away she’s thrown back, as if she’d collided with a semi-soft, yet unmovable object. She tries again, from a different angle. Same result. No matter the speed or side, she can’t reach her. 

She watches in horror as a wound appears on Raven’s torso; long and precise, as if she’s being sliced open with a knife. Only there is no knife. And no one to wield it. But there’s blood, dripping from the fresh cut and similar ones on her arms. Her lip is bloody too where she’s bitten into it from the pain.  
Clarke yells again, throwing herself against the invisible wall between her and her friend. No use.

‘What kind of gross game is this, you sick fuck! Leave her the hell alone.’

She pounds the wall again and continues yelling as a fresh slice appears across Ravens thigh and her legs buckle and scrape against the floor. 

‘Coward,’ she screams, ‘fucking coward. She’s tied up and helpless and you’re torturing her without even having the guts to show yourself.’

‘Hod op.’

Clarke freezes at the foreign voice. It’s calm, eerily so in macabre scene she’s witnessing, yet easily echoes around the chamber. It’s commanding, almost nonchalant in its power, as if dominance has long and unquestionably been established.

In another second, Clarke isn’t sure if she blinks or not, there is a glow, cold and muted, but there nonetheless, and dozens of forms materialize in front of her. They’re slightly taller than most humans, though they appear to have human form, although it’s difficult to see their faces as they seem to be obscured with masks or paint of some kind. Talk about going the extra mile for Halloween. They stand, foreboding and silent, an impenetrable ring around the rock to which Raven is bound. No wonder she couldn’t get through. 

There’s a smaller group standing nearer to Raven. One warrior, lithe and angular with hair cropped short and a gaze so fierce it could melt iron, is standing in front of her, a large dagger in hand, leaving no doubt to what she is poised to do. To her right stands another figure, slightly taller. She wears no mask, only warpaint that darkens the areas around her eyes so that they stand out like two, blazing emeralds. Clarke knows immediately that it was her voice which paused the madness, knows it by the way all the others are angled slightly towards her, measuring her every gesture, a ghoulish orchestra waiting for the signal from their conductor, by the way she remains calm, unhurried assessing Clarke with a look that would make even her mother squirm.

‘I am not opposed to you witnessing the restitution ritual, Clarke of the Sky People, although most mortals find it disturbing.’

Clarke shivers at the sound of her name in the haunting voice.

‘There is no shame in righting the wrongs committed this day.’

She turns then, nodding to the woman with the dagger who makes to slice through Raven’s shoulder.

‘Stop,’ Clarke yells, pushing forward, only to find the spears of the perimeter guard lowered towards her. ‘I’m not afraid of you, cowards,’ she growls at them, ‘standing around, torturing an unarmed person. I wish to speak to your commander. If not you can go ahead and chain me up too.’

The pale faces darken and a few beings break rank, intent on giving her her wish. 

‘Let her pass.’

Once again, the command is unquestionable, and if the guards are surprised to hear it, they hide it well, parting stiffly so Clarke can hurry through. Her eyes rove over Raven as she moves, checking her wounds, determining, based on the few first-aid classes she took, that they don’t look too serious. Not yet, anyway. 

The swarthy warrior glares at her, as if she’d like nothing more than to plunge the dagger into the intruder’s chest before continuing the ritual. Clarke looks away quickly before she loses her nerve, turning her eyes towards the commander. 

And then momentarily forgets everything else. 

Clarke isn’t one for fancy adjectives—art being her creative medium of choice—but mesmerizing is the only word to describe the creature before her. The air is different around her, even compared to the other unearthly beings. It pulsates. 

She feels herself sucked in in an enthralling, irresistible mixture of awe and fear. She’s staring now, shamelessly, tracing the chiseled cut of her jaw, the braided mane, the careful black brushstrokes on her face. The effect is haunting, stunning. 

And her eyes. She can’t pull her gaze away. It’s as if they hold millennia of emotions in their depths. Placid. Churning. As if staring too deeply might swallow her up. She wants it.

‘What are you?’ she whispers, the words pulled from her thoughts into the space between them.

‘I’ve been called many things.’ Her voice is quieter, softer. It still fills the room. ‘Undead, goddess, ghost.’

‘Vampire?’ Clarke can’t help tacking the word on to what seems like a comprehensive list of Halloween characters. 

An almost smirk pulls at her perfect lips. 

‘I haven’t been a vampire for centuries.’

Clarke wants to smirk back, when anger flares within her at her friend’s plight. Magnificent this creature might be. And terrible.

‘Right, so now you just torture innocent people who accidentally fall into your home.’

‘You are mistaken. It is not torture, it is restitution. And you have not been harmed, Clarke.’

Her name again, the way it shivers through her stomach when she says it. 

‘Why not?’

‘You have not desecrated the temple as your friend has.’

As she speaks, the room doesn’t shift so much as fade. She can still see Raven and her ring of tormentors, but she can also see the wider temple, both as it is and as it was. There’s the crater caused by the explosion in what she now sees was a corridor in the west wing. 

It was a magnificent structure. There are halls, dormitories, glistening treasure vaults, atriums, a maze of passageways that all lead to this, the altar room, sometimes throne room, of the goddess.

‘Hades,’ she whispers the word as the knowledge dawns on her.

The goddess tilts her head, appraising Clarke. 

‘Lexa will do. Hades has been distorted by men so that it no longer carries the meaning it once did.’

Clarke wants to ask what that was. She doesn’t.

‘And what are you?’

Clarke is surprised at the question. 

‘I’m human?’ she tries.

‘No, I’m referring to…’ she gestures wordlessly to her costume.

‘Ah, well.’ Clarke feels her face burn hot. Leave it to her to find herself having to explain Halloween to the goddess of the underworld.

‘I’m a zombie. You know, for Halloween?’

Lexa’s confused expression tells her she knows no such thing.

‘It’s something we do at this time of year. We dress up as monsters or other scary creatures and eat candy.’

‘I see.’ She is thoughtful for a moment. ‘I fail to see a logical connection between the two. But then human rituals have long puzzled me.’

Clarke realizes she’s not quite sure what the connection is either.

‘And you find zombies scary?’ the goddess wrinkles her nose. ‘They are slow and generally harmless creatures. Seems an odd choice for a warrior who stands without fear before the goddess of the underworld.’

Clarke blushes, wants to clarify the ‘warrior’ mistake. Then realizes she’s right. She should fear her, she’s witnessed firsthand what the creature can do. But somehow, instinctively, she doesn’t.

‘Perhaps the goddess is more rational than a zombie.’

There is a definite tug at the corner of her mouth this time. It feels a little awkward, unpracticed. Clarke would do anything to see it again. 

‘Perhaps.’

‘You know, a rational goddess would recognize that Raven blowing a giant hole in her temple was an accident and let us off with a warning.’

‘When sacred ground is desecrated, the guilty party must be punished as part of the restitution. It is our way.’

‘Punished until?’

‘One cut for every creature she risked.’

‘Ok, but, who makes the rules? Could the nature of the restitution maybe be negotiated?’

Lexa is frowning. Clarke turns to where she’s looking to see Murphy piss-painting the walls. 

‘Right, that’s…’ she racks her brain for an excuse, ‘Murphy is pretty much incorrigible, but harmless. You must have something of that sort on your squad.’

Lexa sighs, shakes her head.

‘So about an alternative payment for my friend’s…accident.’

‘I suppose an alternative sacrifice would be acceptable.’

‘A sacrifice. Right…I don’t suppose you mean the whole ‘blood of a virgin’ thing?’

Lexa eyes her again. Clarke wonders if she can feel the heat on her skin, hear her drumming heart, read her mind. Shit…that would suck.

‘Virginity is not a requirement. But it must be a woman of some…character.’

‘Well, I have both obstinate and bull-headed on my CV. Does that count?’

‘What is a CV?’

She almost looks cute when confused. Clarke tries to stomp on the thought.

‘It’s where people lie about themselves to get a job.’

‘And I am to accept this lie as veritable proof of your character?’

‘You make an excellent point. I could give you a list of examples if you’d like.’

Again an almost smile.

‘No need. I believe your character was established when you yelled ‘cowards’ at an immortal army.’

‘Ah yes,’ Clarke pauses, feels a little tingle of pride at the way Lexa is regarding her, as if she’s worth something. ‘Any other requirements?’

‘There is…that is…’ 

Clarke can almost swear she’s blushing beneath the dark paint.

‘It is not a requirement, so much as tradition, but it was expected that the only the most beautiful were offered as sacrifice.’

Now it’s Clarke’s turn to blush. A little. 

‘I see. And would Hades find me satisfactory.’

There’s no mistaking the blush this time. Lexa lowers her head slightly, swallows.

‘Very.’

Clarke feels warm.

‘So, what kind of sacrifice is this?’

‘Considering that the destruction of this temple could lead to them,’ she motions to the group still standing around Clarke, ‘being trapped here forever, jus drein, jus daun. Blood must have blood.’

She’s watching Clarke now, eyes masked, unwavering. Clarke feels oddly calm. She wasn’t sure what to expect, still doesn’t know if she understands what she’s getting into. If she just signed up for her death shouldn’t there be all the mourning of things undone and fear of leaving loved ones? 

Then she gets it. Lexa is calm. And that quiet confidence is somehow contagious. An odd sense of trust has grown between them.

‘Will they be satisfied with me taking Raven’s place?’

‘They will if I am.’

Clarke nods. 

‘I guess I’m ready then. Last words are kind of wasted.’

Lexa draws her dagger, steps closer. Clarke’s breath catches at her nearness, a nervous, chill running through her at the radiating energy.

They might not have been wrong about Hades being the goddess of death, but what they missed was overwhelming yearning you had for it when actually in her presence.

The goddess reaches for her hand, and Clarke’s surprised by the heat of her fingers where they touch her. Warmth ripples up her arm, shivers through her chest. How can death feel so alive?

The dagger flashes, glinting in the pale light. 

Clarke closes her eyes.

And opens them again, drawn sharply back by the prickle of pain in her palm.

A small, neat cut slides through its center, a few drops of blood beginning to trickle out. 

She looks at Lexa to find deep emerald pools staring back at her in a kind of wonder. 

‘It has been…far too long since I have seen one with as much courage and loyalty as you have shown me, Clarke of the Sky People. Perhaps there is something to zombies after all.’

And with that, she lowers her lips and kisses Clarke’s palm, just over the sacrificial incision.  
\-------  
‘Wait. Not her.’

Lexa turns from where she was repairing the hole, summoning leaves and branches to cover the stone.

‘Heda, we cannot put this place at risk by allowing her to keep the memory.’

Lexa looks down thoughtfully at the heap of sleeping teenagers against the log, eyes lingering on golden locks and a face both strong and beautiful even in sleep.

‘She is not a threat.’

‘Lexa,’ Indra exhales loudly.

‘Pleni,’ Lexa replies in a tone that brokers no argument.

‘She as earned it.’ 

Her voice is soft, almost reverent. Indra knowing there is no point arguing, shares a disgruntled look with Gustus, who only sighs and shakes his head. 

Despite an eternity ruling the underworld, sometimes Hades is just a girl.  
\-------  
‘Holy shit, guys. It’s practically dark. We’ll never make it in time.’

Octavia jumps up and kicks the rest of the juvies into wakefulness. 

Clarke frowns. The dream. It was so real. Raven!

She rushes to her friend, hands roaming, checking her arms and stomach for wounds.

‘Hey, woah, woah, Griff. I’m all for it, but a woman expects a little wooing before you get to second base,’

She’s fine. Not a blemish on her much-envied arms.

‘I had the weirdest dream.’

Raven waggles her eyebrows suggestively. ‘Care to share?’

‘It must be that fucking moonshine Murphy keeps forcing on us. I can’t for the life of me remember why we came out here in the first place,’ Octavia offers.

But that’s not right. Clarke remembers that. There was the bomb, and…

She looks around. The forest is intact, calm except for the occasional sound of small animals rustling about. 

It can’t be. She couldn’t have imagined Her. She’d…

She looks down at her left hand. There, barely visible, is a thin scar, cut neatly into the center of her palm. 

When she kissed it she must have…

The memory leaps into her mind: strong, delicate fingers pressing into the back of her hand, pain, warm lips…

‘Griff, I swear to Hades if we miss out on the booze cause you’re too busy gazing dreamily at the forest you’re buying us a keg.’

Clarke smiles. Turns and begins jogging to catch up with her friends. 

Lexa was right. They did get quite a few things wrong about Hades.


End file.
